The Willows General Management Ltd v Janet Hawkins

Under section 5 of the Mobile Homes Act 1983, a pitch-fee review notice must be served by a person entitled to possession of the site but for residents’ rights to station their mobile homes. A headlease subject to separate leases of pitches does not make its holder the site owner while those leases prevent it from possessing the pitches. A site licence issued under a separate statutory scheme does not establish site-owner status or bind the tribunal on that question.

The Willows General Management Ltd and The Beaches Management Limited appealed, with permission, from First-tier Tribunal decisions about pitch-fee review notices for protected park-home sites. The Willows held a long lease of its site, subject to a 40-year lease of Ms Hawkins’ pitch that was assigned to it in May 2024. The Beaches held a headlease of Beechfield Park, subject to underleases of individual pitches held by other companies. The FTT treated The Willows’ 2023 notice as invalid and its 2024 notice as valid; it treated The Beaches’ 2022 and 2023 notices as invalid because it was not the site owner when they were served. An earlier appeal in The Beaches Management Limited v Furbear and others [2024] UKUT 180 (LC) had reversed an FTT finding about the form of notices and remitted the unresolved ownership issue. The central question in these appeals was whether each appellant was the statutory site owner when it served the relevant notice, and whether holding a site licence answered that question.

Both appeals were dismissed.

1. Under section 5 of the Mobile Homes Act 1983, the person who may serve a pitch-fee review notice must be entitled, by virtue of an estate or interest, to possession of the site but for residents’ rights to station mobile homes there. A headlease holder whose possession of a pitch is displaced by a separate lease of that pitch does not meet the definition while that lease remains in force.

2. At the dates of the 2022 and 2023 notices for Beechfield Park, The Beaches held the headlease subject to underleases of the pitches held by other parties. It was therefore not the site owner under section 5. The fact that residents’ agreements had been made with a different management company did not alter that conclusion: the site owner is bound by those agreements.

3. The Tribunal rejected the argument that a local authority’s grant of a site licence established that the licence holder was the site owner. The licensing legislation uses a similar concept of an occupier, but the licence decision did not bind the FTT on the distinct question under section 5. The Tribunal agreed with the analysis in Marigolds Management Limited v Barnes and others [2026] UKIT 186 (LC). The licensing argument therefore failed in both appeals.

4. The Willows’ land-register entries showed that its lease of the whole site was subject to a 40-year lease of Ms Hawkins’ pitch. That lease was not assigned to The Willows until 22 May 2024. The FTT was therefore correct that The Willows was not the site owner when it served the 2023 notice, but was the owner when it served the 2024 notice. The 2023 notice was invalid and the 2024 notice remained valid.

5. The FTT’s determination that the pitch fee should increase by 2.20%, from £252.35 to £257.90 per month from 1 November 2024, accordingly took effect.

• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): Dismissed both appeals, leaving the FTT’s determination of the 2024 pitch-fee increase for Ms Hawkins in effect.
• First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber): On remittal, held that The Beaches’ 2022 and 2023 notices were invalid because it was not the site owner. In separate proceedings, held that The Willows’ 2023 notice was invalid but its 2024 notice was valid.
• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): In the earlier Beechfield appeal, The Beaches Management Limited v Furbear and others [2024] UKUT 180 (LC) reversed the FTT’s finding that the notices were invalid because of their form and remitted the unresolved site-owner issue.
• First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber): Initially found the Beechfield notices invalid because of their form. The date and citation of that decision are not stated in the judgment.